Karachi United off to Liverpool to play in Standard Chartered Trophy

KARACHI: The 'Standard Chartered Trophy’ is an international 5-a-side football event and this will be the third edition of this tournament.

The competition was a great success in 2012 and 2013 with 10-team participating. This year 14 teams are participating in this Standard Chartered Trophy which include UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Nigeria, Kenya, Thailand, Korea, UAE, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Gambia, and Pakistan.

Football may not be the pulse of the nation but the following of this sport in Pakistan is increasing day by day. There is a huge audience in Pakistan who religiously follow their favorite football teams and favorite players.

Some of the top clubs from Europe enjoy great support from Pakistani fans and there is a great interest in English Premier League, Spanish La Liga, German Bundesliga and Italian Serie A.

Unfortunately, as our national team has never showed any significant performance at the international level and has not produced any local football greats, the following of football in the masses is still lacking.

To promote football in Pakistan, there is a massive need of support both from the public and private sectors. While Pakistan Football Association is doing efforts on their front to improve the quality and appeal of this game in the country, there are very few private sector organizations that have made any significant effort to promote the game of football in Pakistan. Standard Chartered Bank, who is the lead sponsor of Liverpool FC, is making an effort to promote football in the country and in this regard SCB Pakistan is taking a team from Pakistan to participate in the Standard Chartered Trophy that will be played at Anfield, the home ground of Liverpool FC.

To pick the team from Pakistan, a qualifying tournament was earlier organized by Standard Chartered Pakistan where number of teams from across the country participated and Karachi United football club came out on top and will now represent Pakistan at Standard Chartered Trophy at Anfield.

This tournament will take place on 12th & 13th of May and the all the players of Karachi United are geared up to perform well in this tournament.